Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Special Education, Counseling and Student Affairs / Christy Craft / In this study, I sought to determine how the multicultural competence scores of entry-level housing professionals were impacted by the demographic characteristics of race, gender, sexual orientation, years of experience, and graduate school diversity curricular content and experiences. Additionally, it was important to establish a baseline of knowledge related to multicultural competence for this particular population of entry-level housing professionals. I selected participants for this study from the 2016 membership directory of the Upper Midwest Region of the Association of College and University Housing Officers (UMR-ACUHO). I used quantitative data analysis methods to answer four research questions. I analyzed the first research question using ANOVA and post hoc tests for each of the demographic variables of race, gender, and sexual orientation. I found statistically significant differences in multicultural competence scores based on race and sexual orientation, while I found no differences by gender. The post hoc examinations revealed that for the various racial categories, there were no statistically significant differences by group. With regard to sexual orientation, I found that gay male participants had multicultural competence scores that were statistically significantly higher than their heterosexual/straight colleagues. I analyzed the third research question using linear regression in an attempt to determine if there was a relationship between years of experience and multicultural competence scores. There was no statistically significant relationship. The final two research questions used ANOVA and post hoc analyses to determine if there were differences in the multicultural competence scores of participants based on the diversity content in their graduate programs and their most impactful multicultural graduate school experiences. I found no statistical differences for either of those research questions.

The resident assistant (RA) position at higher education institutions is a position of great influence. RAs have the opportunity to impact many students’ lives through the various roles that they engage in as a RA. The most common roles that RAs are expected to perform include developing community, serving as a peer helper, being a friend to residents, and enforcing policy. The very nature of a multi-role position presents challenges for RAs in understanding how to effectively enact all of their roles. This study aimed at developing an understanding of the ways in which RAs engage in identity management strategies with residents. To accomplish this purpose, 143 RAs were surveyed using an identity management strategies scale designed for this study. In addition, a previously designed self-monitoring scale was also administered to test the relationship between identity management strategies and self-monitoring. These scales were applied to situations representing each of the four primary roles of a RA: community developer, peer helper, friend, and policy enforcer. The results indicate that RAs are more likely to engage in avoidance strategies during the policy enforcer role than any other strategy. In addition, first-year RAs generally use more effective identity management strategies when developing community than returner RAs use. First-year RAs’ identity management strategies also appear to be more influenced by the RAs’ desires to be friends with residents than returner RAs’ identity management strategies. The results also indicate that female RAs are more effective in the community development role than male RAs. However, male RAs are more effective than female RAs in the policy enforcement role. A result that was supported throughout the study was the finding that RAs with upperclassmen residents are not as actively engaged in communicating their roles to residents than are RAs with freshmen and upperclassmen residents or only freshmen residents. Finally, the relationship of perceived self-monitoring to RAs’ choice of identity management strategies was not supported. The results of the study, interpretation of the data analysis, study implications, and directions for future research are discussed in detail.

The resident assistant (RA) position at higher education institutions is a position of great influence. RAs have the opportunity to impact many students’ lives through the various roles that they engage in as a RA. The most common roles that RAs are expected to perform include developing community, serving as a peer helper, being a friend to residents, and enforcing policy. The very nature of a multi-role position presents challenges for RAs in understanding how to effectively enact all of their roles. This study aimed at developing an understanding of the ways in which RAs engage in identity management strategies with residents. To accomplish this purpose, 143 RAs were surveyed using an identity management strategies scale designed for this study. In addition, a previously designed self-monitoring scale was also administered to test the relationship between identity management strategies and self-monitoring. These scales were applied to situations representing each of the four primary roles of a RA: community developer, peer helper, friend, and policy enforcer. The results indicate that RAs are more likely to engage in avoidance strategies during the policy enforcer role than any other strategy. In addition, first-year RAs generally use more effective identity management strategies when developing community than returner RAs use. First-year RAs’ identity management strategies also appear to be more influenced by the RAs’ desires to be friends with residents than returner RAs’ identity management strategies. The results also indicate that female RAs are more effective in the community development role than male RAs. However, male RAs are more effective than female RAs in the policy enforcement role. A result that was supported throughout the study was the finding that RAs with upperclassmen residents are not as actively engaged in communicating their roles to residents than are RAs with freshmen and upperclassmen residents or only freshmen residents. Finally, the relationship of perceived self-monitoring to RAs’ choice of identity management strategies was not supported. The results of the study, interpretation of the data analysis, study implications, and directions for future research are discussed in detail.

Thesis (M.S.)--Mississippi State University. Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

The college roommate experience can be one of the most important aspects of a students' undergraduate experience. As colleges and universities across the country have seen a steady increase in enrollment over the past three decades, so has the demand for living on-campus. In recent years, concerns have arisen as to the benefit and value of these experiences especially considering the significant costs of higher education. As such, it becomes increasingly necessary for institutions of higher education to ensure that the on-campus living experience is positive and beneficial. One aspect of this experience is a student's relationship with his or her roommate. In the past, roommate selection was a largely random process controlled by the institution's office of housing. In recent years, new processes have been created that place more of the control in the hands of the student. The purpose of the present dissertation is to investigate one of these roommate matching programs, the RoomSync Roommate Matching Program. / Educational Leadership

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Mississippi State University. Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

This qualitative case study describes how first year students perceived the impact of living within a living learning community by giving voice to students who wished to not only describe their living experience, but also have this description heard. While living learning communities are not new to Residential Life departments on college campuses, the studies of such programs have predominantly been large scale quantitative studies conducted to assess the overall satisfaction that students feel with living in such a program or to ask one very specific question, typically related to drinking patterns or academic successes. Through the studying of one particular academic living learning community at a specific mid-Atlantic, urban university, I was able to delve deeper into the lives of students and develop a detailed holistic picture of the student experience specifically through the use of student interviews. My small sample, and immersion in the field, permitted an in depth understanding of all aspects of their residential and academic life related to their living learning community experience. The residents took advantage of the research as an opportunity to speak freely about issues that more macro researchers had not considered as potential impacts of student life within a living learning community. The research took place in one residential hall over an entire year. The data was gathered from a series of in-depth interviews and almost daily observations. Studying a select number of students within the community for a full academic year provided the opportunity to ask the same questions on numerous occasions and study how the students' responses changed or remained the same over time. This year long endeavor also permitted my immersion into the community and attendance at programs and events held within the living learning community allowing me to discover five themes relating to the student perspective of living learning communities: The Importance of Family, Social Activities as Opportunities to Bond, Accountability with Regards to Academics, Sense of Exclusivity, and the Importance of Personality on Perception of LLC Success. Through these themes, this study provides one of the few rigorous insights into life in a living learning community from the student perspective directly through the use of student voice, allowing for higher educational leaders and planners to take this individualized perspective into account in the organization, implementation, funding, and assessment of future living learning community endeavors. / Educational Administration

VIANA, Mônica Josiane Coelho. A política de assistência estudantil e a contrarreforma universitária: estudo sobre o programa de moradia universitária na Universidade Federal do Ceará - UFC. 2012. 221f. – Dissertação (Mestrado) – Universidade Federal do Ceará, Programa de Pós-graduação em Educação Brasileira, Fortaleza (CE), 2012. / Submitted by Márcia Araújo (marcia_m_bezerra@yahoo.com.br) on 2014-02-26T15:00:49Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2012-DIS-MJCVIANA.pdf: 4189515 bytes, checksum: 85557dfa29fe754e6508f117ca819a8b (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Márcia Araújo(marcia_m_bezerra@yahoo.com.br) on 2014-02-26T17:27:47Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2012-DIS-MJCVIANA.pdf: 4189515 bytes, checksum: 85557dfa29fe754e6508f117ca819a8b (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-02-26T17:27:47Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2012-DIS-MJCVIANA.pdf: 4189515 bytes, checksum: 85557dfa29fe754e6508f117ca819a8b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012 / This work aims to analyze The UFC University Housing Program as part of the student assistance policy, inserting it into the process of counter-reform of higher education. Understanding the relevance of this program has been elected as the central objective in the trajectory of student assistance with social rights acquired, observing the relation between the students’ real needs and the services provided by the State. In order to achieve this goal, we started with the analysis of the current global crisis of capital and the implications for the structural adjustment of the State, which has been advancing since the 1990s in Brazil, where we are able to witness an increasing denial of rights to the working class, not to mention the constant privatization of education, especially higher education. The historical periods that include governments of Fernando Henrique Cardoso – FHC e Luiz Inácio da Silva – Lula are highlighted, focusing some of the actions taken in recent history concerning the IFEs, public-private partnerships, PROUNI e REUNI. Then, we try to reconstruct the history of student assistance in Brazil, identifying its origin, advances and setbacks in its implementation, getting to the recent elaboration of the Plano Nacional de Assistência Estudantil – PNAES (National Student Assistance Plan). Once it is done, we step more specifically into the field of student assistance at the Federal University of Ceará – UFC, examining, in a deeper status, the University Housing Program from the department of Student Affairs at UFC. Established in the Historical and Dialectical Materialism, the research, apart from theory and documental materials, also had an application of a questionnaire with 111 resident students from the University Housing Program at UFC in the first half of 2012. The developed studies point to a context in which a systematization of a national student assistance policy occurred quite late in the country, and state the importance of the students’ organized struggle. Besides emphasizing the limitations of the assistance policy before the needs of students, it is defended here the urgency of broadening and strengthening of the policy in the face of growing impoverishment of the working class. The analysis allows us to focus on the promise of democratization of access to higher education through the alleged “mobility” allowed by the examination Enem Sisu. / Analisa o programa de moradia universitária da Universidade Federal do Ceará- UFC, como parte da política de assistência estudantil, inserindo-a no processo de contrarreforma da Educação Superior. Elegeu-se como objetivo central compreender a relevância desse programa na trajetória da assistência estudantil como direito social adquirido, observando a relação entre as necessidades reais dos estudantes e os serviços oferecidos pelo Estado. Para alcançar este objetivo, partiu-se da análise da atual crise mundial do capital e das implicações para o ajuste estrutural do Estado, que avança desde os anos 1990 no Brasil, onde se presencia uma crescente negação de direitos à classe trabalhadora, além da constante privatização da educação, especialmente da educação superior. Destacam-se na referida análise os períodos históricos que compreendem os governos de Fernando Henrique Cardoso – FHC e Luis Inácio da Silva –Lula, focalizando algumas das medidas adotadas na história mais recente das IFEs, como as parceiras público- privadas, PROUNI e REUNI. Em seguida, busca-se reconstituir a historia da política de assistência estudantil no Brasil, identificando sua origem, avanços e recuos na sua implementação, chegando à recente elaboração do Plano Nacional de Assistência Estudantil – PNAES. Feito isto, passa-se de modo mais específico, à política de assistência estudantil na Universidade Federal do Ceará, examinando, especialmente, o Programa de Moradia Universitária da Pró-Reitoria de Assuntos Estudantis. Fundamentada no materialismo histórico-dialético, a pesquisa, além de teórica e documental, envolveu a aplicação de questionários com 111 estudantes moradores nas residências universitárias, no primeiro semestre de 2012. Os estudos desenvolvidos apontam que a sistematização de uma política nacional de assistência estudantil ocorreu muito tardiamente no País e atestam a importância da luta organizada dos estudantes. Além de ressaltar as limitações da política de assistência ante as necessidades dos estudantes, defende-se aqui a urgência de ampliação e fortalecimento da referida política em face do crescente empobrecimento da classe trabalhadora. A análise nos permite pôr em foco a promessa da democratização do acesso a educação superior pela suposta “mobilidade” permitida pelo exame Enem Sisu.